Let the World Know: Cartoon Recounts Russian Soldier’s Heroic Act in Syria

Russia's Patriot video studio dedicated an animated film to Russian soldier Andrey Timoshenkov, who sacrificed his life to stop a suicide bomber attack on a humanitarian aid convoy in Syria in June.

The 1.5-minute cartoon shows a brief biography of Sergeant Timoshenkov, followed by the story of his deployment in Syria and his fatal clash with militants. The original video, published November 14 on the studio's YouTube channel, received more than 200,000 views in just a few days and now has about 500,000 views. Check out the dubbed English version of the animated movie.

In an interview to Sputnik International, Patriot's press service shared how the studio's team created this movie.

"The idea to reveal the exploits of our compatriots to a wide audience came up a long time ago. Unlike with Hollywood super heroes, the heroes in our country do not need to be invented — they already live among us," the representative of the studio said.

Patriot's team collects stories about living people who have done heroic acts, as well as stories about those who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of others, according to the studio's press service.

The story of Sergeant Timoshenkov has become the first one to be told by the Russian studio as an animated movie.

"We decided to start with his story, because it happened in our days; it might be one of the major historical events in the world. And ongoing events in Syria are, obviously, one of the most trending issues in recent years," the press service explained.

It took one month and five creative people to make this cartoon. A writer, two video designers, an illustrator and a coordinator of the project got their hands on it in order to let the world know about the heroic act of the selfless soldier.

"We collected information from reliable sources on our own; we also spoke to the close family of the deceased sergeant in order to most accurately reproduce the timeline of the events of that day. A screenplay was written based on the collected material, while our illustrator worked on sketches for the video. After that, our video designers united it all in a single product," the press service said.

The studio also shared its plans to create more cartoons about contemporary Russian heroes: "We believe that this debut has become more than successful for us, and we have already chosen a few more stories to animate. In December, a new series of our film-comics will be available on our YouTube channel."

Sergeant Timoshenkov died on June 16, 2016, in the hospital at the Hmeymim air base and he left behind a wife and young daughter in the Russian city of Smolensk. The day before, the soldier entered into battle with suicide bombers while guarding a humanitarian aid distribution point in Homs province. The soldier opened fire on one of three vehicles filled with explosives and stopped it, receiving lethal injuries in an explosion. The 28-year-old soldier spent about three months in Syria and was due to return home at the end of June.